Wash basins, bowls, and sinks continue to be a common domestic and household feature for bathrooms and powder rooms, being set on, held beneath, or mounted at their upper rims onto a countertop and equipped with hot and cold water controls and a single faucet, an overflow passage, and a bottom drain with a closable stopper. More recently, the faucet is mounted above the basin, separate from the basin, with no apparent connection to the sink but flowing water into the receptacle from above. Such sinks, basins, and bowls occasionally, and now more commonly, are formed as were old-time simple basins or bowls, like a porcelain bowl that was simply set atop a surface without plumbing, but the new ones actually have running water and a drain.
All such basins and sinks, apart from the device of my U.S. Pat. No. 6,353,944, suffer the problem that soap, dirt, toothpaste, hair, shaving cream, and other detritus from users often drops onto and stays on the surface of the basin or sink. The detritus must then be separately washed away by the user, unless it happens to fall into the flow from the faucet itself, but that flow is not intended to cover all the inside surface of the basin or sink. Where the detritus is not separately rinsed away, it can be very unappealing and unsanitary to users who come later. When the detritus dries, it can become difficult to remove without use of specific cleaning products or tools.
Although sinks have been known with similar structures or intended functions, none has provided the functions desired in an aesthetically pleasing and fully functional way. Cheng U.S. Pat. No. 4,231,123 shows a plurality of separate inlet and overflow slots formed about the upper, inner periphery of an inset sink structure, with temperature controls for the inlet water, but no separate, main water inlet; that is, all water comes into the basin through the peripheral inlets, as in a toilet or dentist's spittle receptacle with whirling flow. U.S. Pat. No. 913,323 shows separate cocks for introducing water to a public washbasin and a whirling internal flow through jets 13. Cohen U.S. Pat. No. 1,426,046 is similar, for a sink or bath tub. Three- and four-way valves are known, as from U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,857,241 and 7,458,112, for different purposes.